


Delusions of a Prince

by TheAzureFox



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, It hurts me a lot, M/M, chapter 13 hurts me, semi-au, tfw when a glitch in the game makes you want to cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22965127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAzureFox/pseuds/TheAzureFox
Summary: All Noctis wants to do is to see Prompto again. So why –why– is he being toyed with this way? Why is Prompto standing before him, staring at an empty wall, and why do Noctis's outstretched hands pass right through him?The answer is, of course: Ardyn.
Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum, mentioned Lunafreya/Noctis
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46





	Delusions of a Prince

**Author's Note:**

> Am I allowed to fangirl over how emotional Noctis's voice was after the train scene where he kicks Prompto off the train? Am I allowed to to have my heart broken over how guilty and heartbroken Noctis was when he realized that Ardyn tricked him and he probably hurt his best friend in the worst way possible? Can we talk about how Ardyn refers to Prompto as "dear Prompto" to Noct and alludes to Prompto as being more than just Noctis's best friend? Because I'm still having a hard time _not_ shipping Promptis after the last couple of events I've just played through

* * *

The fortress is devoid of people.

It’s devoid of people, devoid of enemies, devoid of friends, devoid of everything but daemons and Ardyn’s sneering voice of victory.

“ _Such a good boy_ ,” Ardyn’s voice croons over loudspeakers Noctis has tried – and failed – to destroy on his journey through Niflheim’s base. “ _So obedient, you are. Should I reward you? I should reward you, right?_ ”

“Shut up!” He snarls, holding out his hand as a group of imps appear from the ground, peeling their way out of inky darkness to snap at him.

Voices whisper into his ear, words of unintelligible power secreting their way into his mind as the Ring of Lucii steals the life force of the daemons before him.

It’s a tiring effort. Noctis climbs and climbs and climbs, surviving berserk MTs that try to kill him through explosions or axes and clashing with daemons that seek his death just as easily. He ascends upwards and upwards, swiping his precious keycard against any machine he can and then following the whims of the one who trapped him here.

The cycle is never-ending. He follows the words of a madman – _Luna’s killer –_ like a puppet on a string, ascending up elevators marked with danger, chased by a monster that can’t be quelled by his poor lonesome, and finds himself cornered and trapped at every opportunity. Poison gas intoxicates his lungs, his body aches with a weariness he has to ignore, and he’s running low on healing items in this hellscape of loneliness and evil.

There’s a laugh from the loudspeakers. It’s calm and fluid, the kind of laugh that reeks of superiority and knowing all in one go. It grates on Noctis’s nerves, sends him digging his fingers into the palm of his hand until he’s positive he’s going to break the skin and bleed.

“ _You know, I do actually have a gift in mind for you. It’s such a precious gift too. I think you’ll like him._ ”

Noctis freezes at the word _him._ He stiffens, pausing in his journey to stare into the eyes of a camera far too high to feasibly reach.

“ _Caught your eye, have I? Well, I won’t lie. If you keep going, if you keep trying to reach the crystal, maybe you’ll meet your dear Prompto, hm? Just don’t be too late. I can’t guarantee his safety if you’re late to meeting him._ ”

An ache Noctis had thought he’d forgotten fills his soul. His breath shudders with a kind of hope he doesn’t dare to show. Prompto…is Prompto really here? Can he…Can he see his best friend again? Can he apologize for the mistake he made, for being blinded by rage and tricked by a man who has stolen everything from him?

Noctis suddenly wants to see Prompto, to hear his voice, to know that he’s _alive_ and that he’s _not Luna_ and that _everything is fine, I am fine,_ Prompto _is fine._ If he can just see Prompto, if he can reach out his hand and apologize, to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness, then maybe everything will be okay if only for a little bit.

So, when he sees Prompto dashing ahead of him, streaking down a hallway while Noctis’s call for him falls on deaf ears, Noctis knows he has to catch up to him.

 _He’s here,_ Noctis thinks with a swell of his heart. _I can find him._

The presence of Prompto in this lonely facility of nothing but evil soothes his heart in a way Noctis has never felt before. He’s not alone. There’s someone else here, too – _Prompto_ is here too.

So, with renewed conviction chasing away the burning in his legs, Noctis runs through the facility with a sense of vigor. He steals away the life forces of daemons and MTs desperate to end him, circumvents passages of puzzles meant to infuriate him, and comes to a room bulging with boxes too heavy to move.

It is there that he first hears Prompto’s voice, however faint, calling to him.

“Noct, help me!”

He shivers in anticipation, eager to finally come face to face with someone else in this desolation of emptiness and darkness.

Sliding through a wall almost too thin to slip through, he emerges on the other side with an expectant gaze. However, all the hope that is festering inside him begins to turn into bitterness as he realizes that the room is empty and Prompto is nowhere to be seen.

He almost feels like crying. But crying would be a disgrace at this time and moment. He is a king. He cannot cry. He has to stand – and walk – tall, to face Ardyn’s cooing voice with determination and to fulfill the task laid to him by the world itself.

So he continues onwards, treading lightly though passages containing units harboring an ill intent to murder him and passing through rooms in search of the means to go up…up…up.

“ _Have you found your precious Prompto yet, Noctis? He’s waiting for you to find him, you know. As I’m sure you are waiting to find him. Hurry up now. Don’t keep the poor boy waiting.”_

Noctis rakes his nails against the metal wall beside him, if only to let off the steam of frustration sparking inside him. He encounters a patrol of berserk MT’s, using the ring to avoid their blows and return the damage back to them, and when the infested suits of armor break down he leans against a nearby crate and catches his breath.

Sweat dribbles down his skin, the stench of see-through droplets making Noctis’s stomach turn with nausea. He hasn’t had the chance to stop at any of the dormitories located with the Niflheim fortress. He’s wanted to, though. He’s wanted to collapse on beds made from silky white sheets and sneak into showers meant to wash away the blood and grime of an expedition met with terrifying solitude. But he can’t. Because doing so would mean Ardyn would take his chances to toy with Noctis, to swoop down upon him in his moment of weakness – of sleep and cleanliness – to play with him the way a cat does a mouse.

And Noctis, whose whole purpose is to make it to the crystal – to Prompto – to his friends – cannot and _will not_ allow himself the pleasure of a shower and a nap in this place of terror and uncertainty.

So, it is with some regret that he spurns a door marked with the blue lights of the dormitories in order to limp on ahead. His every muscle shakes with adrenaline, his body on high alert as he passes through hallways where his feet clanks upon metal floors and mechanical doors chirp to allow his passage.

He continues onwards, hoping and praying for Ardyn’s voice to go away, for him to find his friends, for the world to stop toying with him and for a safe success through this misery of a fortress.

At times, he comes upon doors way beyond his security level. And, while perhaps a sane person would pass by them, eager to continue on with his mission, sometimes Noctis gives in to weakness and scans his keycard across the doors to which he has no security clearance.

“ _Security clearance authorization denied_ ,” a voice that is not Ardyn’s says, chipper and polite as a female voice continues with: “ _Security clearance level is at level 4. Please upgrade your card to proceed.”_

The voice of the doors to which he cannot access is his only constant companion outside of the words of his tormentor. And, while it is perhaps disgraceful for him to beg for the voice of a machine in order to numb away the loneliness encasing him, Noctis cannot help himself. Desperation to hear the voice of another, even if it is the voice of a machine, keeps him sane, keeps him deluding himself that he’s not alone and that, at the very least, he has this AI’s two-line voice to keep him company.

It’s shameful. Embarrassing, even. But Noctis does what he must to keep sane. And if that means deluding himself with the idea that someone is close to him here, that he’s not alone and that his lack of loneliness means hope that his friends will definitely find him, then he’ll pursue such guilty pleasures by all means to keep his determination alive.

Ardyn, for all his sinister words and crooning tone, lets him have this.

Perhaps he thinks it’s funny. Perhaps he’s laughing at the prince who looks to a door’s voice for sanity. Noctis wouldn’t put it past the man, knowing full well how slimy and disgraceful he truly is. But he’s grateful, in a way, because hearing the mocking tone of _that bastard_ any more might make him finally snap and tear everything he can get his hands on to pieces.

Regardless, Noctis cannot allow himself his fancy for longer than a few seconds. The voice of the door is tempting to listen to, almost kindly in its ceaseless monotone message. Plus, if he deludes himself hard enough, the AI’s voice sounds reminiscent to Luna’s, kind and endearing like a sister reassuring him everything will be alright after the world has gone to shit.

It’s pathetic – _he’s_ pathetic – but a prince who is king in name only is always pathetic. That’s why he can’t stop here. That’s why he can only allow himself fleeting glimpses of a voice not real, why he has to push himself onwards and onwards until he’s chugging potions to chase away the screaming of his muscles.

He ascends upwards, climbing up staircases, leaning against walls panting the way a marathon sprinter might at the end of a long race, and when he arrives in a room full of research notes Ardyn dares to speak again.

“ _You know, it would behoove me if I didn’t tell you that the chance to see your little Prompto is coming up on ahead. Perhaps you would like to see him soon?”_

“Liar!” The boy shouts, the whispers of the ring infiltrating his ears as he unconsciously calls upon its power. “You fucking liar! Stop messing with me!”

“ _Now, now. My dear prince, when have I ever lied to you? I’ve_ never _lied to you, have I? This is all fun and games for me, sure, but I wouldn’t steer you wrong. Besides, is this really the time to doubt me? For all you know Prompto could be waiting for you…hoping for you…his best friend…to come and save him. That sounds like him after all, doesn’t it? Always waiting to be saved by you.”_

“What do you know about us?” He growls, limping through a corridor after a piece of shrapnel lands in his leg from a MT’s explosion.

He tries to suck the life force out of a nearby imp to heal his wound but finds himself out of MP. He rolls to avoid the imp’s blow, biting back a shriek of pain. The imp’s attacks are ceaseless, claws gouging across the fabric of his skin, and it is only when Noctis scrambles backwards that he finds a hi-elixir conveniently underneath the palm of his right hand.

He grabs the bottle in an instant, unplugging the cork from the top and shoving down the glowing blue liquid into his mouth. Energy revitalizes him as he pulls the shred of metal from his leg, allowing the potion to work its magic and heal him in both body and soul as he rolls away from another attack and the imp explodes in a fury of blue light.

“ _Oh my dear Noctis. I’ve been watching you, always, you know. I’ve watched you for a very long time._ ”

“Fucking _creep_.”

A laugh. “ _My point is, I know your feelings towards that boy. I know that you would trust him with your life. I’ve seen your grief over your little accident with him, the way your voice cried more for him than your beloved wife. It’s strange, isn’t it? That a man would be mourning more over the best friend he kicked off the train than the woman who sacrificed her life for him?_ ”

Noctis stumbles into a wall, slams into it in a shock, and slides down in a panting heap as he falls to the ground. His body aches, trembling, and when he tries to rise up again he finds his arms and legs have betrayed him. So he topples over, collapsing onto the ground with desperation filling his mind as he begs himself to stand up _once more, just once more._

“I don’t know what you’re implying,” he says, reaching his arms up slowly to land the palm of his hands upon a metal crate. “But for me, Prompto and Luna are both very precious to me. And you stole them away. You stole them away from me, you bastard!”

_“A pity. Are you really equating that servant girl with the boy who’s been by your side since the dawn of time?”_

A laugh that’s more of a bitter snort than anything else. “Since when was Luna a servant?” He crawls up the crate, shuddering under the weight of his own body as he comes to a stand.

“ _Oh? Didn’t you know? The Oracle is bound to the word of the king. Her feelings are inconsequential to what the king wants. That’s how she’s been raised, my dear Noctis. And because she was raised that way, she truly thought she was in love with you. As you were her._

“ _Fate is a fickle thing, my dear Noctis. You may hold love in your heart for Luna as she did you, but was that obligation or was that true love? I would call that servitude, if anything.”_

Noctis, tired and running ragged of breath, curls his lips at a nearby camera pointed in his direction. “What do you know of Luna?”

“ _Everything. After all, just as I have watched you, so have I her. She, like you, plays a role in everything that must occur.”_

“And where does Prompto fit into this?” He asks. “What makes you say I’m equating him to Lunafreya? Prompto is my friend. Luna is… _was_ my wife.”

Ardyn laughs. “ _Ooh. Ouch. Do you hear that, Prompto? Do you hear what your precious Noctis is saying right now? Look how easily you’ve been spurned. There’s no hope for you there. Isn’t that heart-breaking? All that hope burning in you…all that will to live on…don’t you want it to just disappear now? You do, don’t you? Well…maybe I can help with that.”_

Something nasty rips its way out of his throat. “ _Don’t hurt him!”_ He snarls, the weight of his words sending him toppling against a nearby box as he says them. He rests there, breathing so heavily that he feels like he could die at any moment. “Just…don’t take anyone else away from me. Please. Don’t take Prompto away from me. Please just…let him be safe. Let him…”

But Noctis can’t focus his eyes anymore and the world is going dark. His voice fades in his throat, trapped by the confines of his lungs, and unable to withstand the ache in his bones, he topples to the ground.

His body is coated in sweat, his eyes can hardly stay open, and the whispers of the Ring of Lucii are fading from his ears as he drifts to a land calling his name.

In the distance, however, he hears the call of something familiar.

“ _Noct!_ ”

His eyes flutter, tired and uncertain. He tries to keep awake, to look for the calling of that soothing voice murmuring his name into his ears.

“ _Noct! Wake up!”_

His body protests staying awake, fighting against his mind for the chance to sleep at long last.

“ _Hey, buddy, listen to me! You’ve got to listen to me!”_

That voice reminds him of many things. Of sunshine filtering through canopies of densely packed trees. Of chocobos and gyashi greens rolled into one at stables parked at the edge of a dirt road. Of laughter that’s infectious and of a helping hand always waiting to brighten his day.

“ _I’ll be waiting for you, Noct! So please…please don’t give up now! I’m waiting for you, you hear me-?“_

The voice is cut off without warning. Noctis bemoans its disappearance, his body trembling with an ache that’s more than just quavering muscles and, bereft of its presence, Noctis falls into a pitiful sleep.

* * *

He dreams. In the interim between exhaustion and sleep, he dreams of a figure cast in all white.

Luna is there in her field of sylleblossoms, adorned in the wedding dress she was to wear at their wedding and dancing in the field of flowers. Her movements are so light and airy, so elegant and beautiful, that Noctis can’t help but want to approach her, seeking the Elysium from which she’s come.

He watches her, taking the time to stand in the field of sylleblossoms to admire her, and when she turns to him, he finds his breath caught in his throat.

There are tears in her eyes. She is crying, her dance drained of its happiness as she pauses in her movements to come close to him.

“My dear Noctis,” she murmurs to him, reaching out a hand to place on his chest.

“Luna,” he whispers back, wrapping his hands around the one touching him and feeling like crying with her all the same. “ _Luna._ ”

She stares at him, then, her blue eyes searching his. He looks at her, watching, waiting, and finds himself surprised when the field around them ripples into an inky cloud of purple, green and blue.

“Noctis,” she says. “I understand my folly.”

He furrows his eyebrows. “Folly?”

“I was afraid. I wanted to cry. I wanted to abandon that which was imposed upon me and flee, no matter the costs.” Luna’s hand is warm against his chest, soothing, but there is something about it growing cold as she continues speaking. “I was the Oracle. It was my duty to serve the king. And I served you. But, I also promised you a paradise of lies. I regret that. I regret that so much.”

“Luna?”

She presses against his chest, lightly. “I trapped you in my expectations, as the world did with us. Destiny is a scary thing like that. I should know.”

The pressure of her palm grows closer as she pushes him back. He staggers a step backwards, his gaze questioning, but finds his voice caught in his throat as Luna smiles a sad smile in his direction.

“I will not burden you anymore. I will not allow you to chase after me. You do not belong here, not yet Noctis, and you shouldn’t be chasing after a paradise that is not calling your name.”

Her hand becomes more insistent, sending him backpedaling as the field of ink presses in all around them, arms of oil shoving Noctis back as Luna’s image distorts with every step he takes.

“Go to him.” Luna says. “You will not have much time to make things right with him. I can wait forever. He cannot. He is waiting for you in the way that I am. But he lives in a world I do not. And, I have no right to tear you from what is best for you. Do not stay here, dear Noctis, and chase after the one who is truly waiting for you to come instead.”

With that, Luna shoves him over a cliff made from a waterfall of colors. He falls, reaching for her in his confusion, and when she waves goodbye to him, her image shatters into fireflies of white light. He falls endlessly, screaming for her name on his lips, and when he hits the bottom he is surprised to find himself caught in the arms of someone new.

“I’m waiting,” a voice whispers into his ears, feathers of blonde hair streaking across the sides of his vision. “You promised you’d come and find me, didn’t you, Noctis?”

And he awakes.

* * *

To his surprise, when he returns from the unconscious land of slumber and surreal dreams, his body is not yet cut up into pieces by MT’s or devoured by daemons. Instead, it is very much untouched. The bruises of his journey are still there, the grime of dust and soot from the lonely facility still infects his skin but, over all, he is still alive and kicking.

There’s a moment of pause before Noctis regains himself, pushing to his feet to scurry forwards. A deadening silence drifts in the air, keeping him on edge as his aching muscles protest his every move. He’s tense, rightfully so, but there is something almost unsettling about waking up all alone after some undetermined amount of hours to traverse a landscape of machinery and flickering lights.

Luna’s words still haunt his memory as he proceeds onwards and onwards, heaving his way through corridors too long for comfort. Her voice is soft in his ears, still present like the wrath of an omnipresent specter as he treks forwards. There’s an ache in his heart over her desperation to push him away, a longing biting at his heart that promises relief if only he can find his way into Luna’s arms.

And, oh, how he wants to give up everything here and now, to return to that land of paradise and flowers and dance with Luna the way lovers spending a life in eternity would. But he had been denied from her embrace, denied from a life of eternal slumber and no more reason to fear what is beyond his grasp.

So he walks. He walks and walks and walks, heading towards a destination that beckons to the crown on his head and awaits the answer to the misery he cannot escape from.

Eventually, after wandering for more hours upon hours without end, he winds up in a room that causes him to hold his breath.

It is a small room, one dedicated to shelves full of books and desks smarting with dozens of whirring computers, but what catches his eye is the figure strapped to the chair. A body dressed in blond hair, a black leather jacket, and pale skin devoid of color sits slumped over in a chair with his back facing him.

Noctis approaches the body with slow, hopeful steps, his hand reaching out for the slumping figure with an enthusiasm that baffles even himself.

“Prom…” He says, the boy’s name caught in his throat like a reverent whisper, “Prom, it’s me.”

His fingers land on the boy’s shoulders, light to the touch so as not to scare, but the effect is immediate. The image of Prompto sitting before him flickers like an illusion, spluttering and sizzling with unearthly pixels, and a body of black metal shivers and then spasms to the ground under Noctis’s careful touch.

“ _Another_ trick,” he says with a sickened laugh caught halfway down his throat as he digs the heel of his foot into the body of the doll. “When will you be satisfied with toying with me, Ardyn? _When?_ ”

The loudspeakers crackle. “ _I see you found a dear friend of old Prompto. You should be nicer to that body, Noctis. I would hate to see your reaction to meeting your best friend when he learns you can’t handle your rage against poor, helpless magitek soldiers_.”

He stomps the body of the MT with a display of rebellious frustration. The crunch of metal under his feet is stupidly satisfying and he relishes in the joy of denying Ardyn his right to cow Noctis into submission. The man is all tricks, in the end, using the cruelest tactics in the book to get him to break. Well, _ha,_ he won’t trick Noctis into taking pity on the very things that are trying to take his neck from his head.

“Prompto has nothing to do with the magitek soldiers and you know it,” Noctis growls to the nearest camera. “I won’t fall for your tricks.”

Ardyn’s voice doesn’t reply to his and be basks in the silence, allowing himself the idea that he’s somehow won an argument with the man who is torturing him.

He creeps along, endlessly, hoping for salvation at the end of this ceaseless journey up flights of stairs marred with yellow light and pathways blocked by robots mean and menacing.

He walks on forever and ever, continuing his endless cycle of beating up MTs, sucking the life out of daemons, and wandering endlessly to search for things that can progress his path.

He continues upwards and upwards, always ascending and never descending until at last he reaches a staircase tall and looming. He scrambles to a stop at the base of it, nearly launching himself face-first into the concrete steps, when he notices with a start that someone peculiar is waiting at the very top.

A back that is a sight for sore eyes greets his hungry gaze. His sight inhales the glossy leather jacket adorned on the person above, takes in the way pale skin battered with angry red wounds and a black bandana on his arm sits there, standing, as if waiting for Noctis to catch up with him.

“Prompto!” He cries, agonized relief in his voice as he steps up the stairs, one step at a time, and reaches out desperate hands towards the waiting figure. “Prompto, you’re alive!”

His best friend does not answer him, does not even seem to hear him, but Noctis’s mind does not process that fact. Instead it processes his wants and desires, the _need_ to pull Prompto close and hug him tight, to indulge in the touch of someone else living, _breathing_ and to beg for mercy for all the mistakes he’s made.

He gets to the top of the stairs, relief blooming like a blossom in his heart, and he approaches Prompto with a vigor that has eluded him previously. He reaches out, fingers intent on clasping Prompto’s wrist so he can pull him close, but he is surprised to find himself falling to the floor without warning.

He slams into the ground like a beast made vulnerable by the impact of a blade. He screams, the pain hitting him with a force that is part hurt part emotion, and when he gathers himself to spin around, to question what has just happened, his heart drops in his chest.

Prompto stares, but he doesn’t stare at him. No, this Prompto stares straight ahead, looking at an empty wall with an expression of undetermined emotion. His body is stiff and lifeless, a mere copy of the boy Noctis knows so well. It hurts Noctis to see him like that. It hurts Noctis even more when he reaches out a hand to grab at Prompto’s own and feels his fingers drifting through air, a painful realization striking him all at once:

This is an illusion.

A sob finally claws its way up his throat. It’s wretched and unbefitting of a prince who’s soon to be king. But he can’t help it. It’s cruel to see this illusion of Prompto standing before him, a lookalike specter who looks too close to the real thing to be a fake. All he wants to do is cup Prompto’s face with his hand, to say he’s sorry for everything that happened on the train, to hug him close and never let him go and apologize until he can apologize no more.

But Ardyn ruined that. Ardyn ruined everything. Just as he’s ruining Noctis now, tearing him from the inside out with these tricks and illusions. Prompto isn’t here. Prompto is _never_ going to be here. He knows this now. Prompto is dead, just as Luna is. He’s a fool to believe otherwise. Ardyn stabbed Luna and took her away from him. Then he made Noctis kick Prompto off a train and probably took the boy to kill him all the same.

“Prompto,” he cries. “Prompto, I’m so sorry.”

And it is at the top of that staircase, with the illusion of Prompto hovering over him, that Noctis breaks at long last. He presses his head to the metal floor, fists slamming on the ground, and cries until he can cry no more.

As if to mock him, Ardyn says:

“ _Your friend is waiting for you, Noctis. Be a dear and hurry to his side, alright? Wouldn’t want him to end up like poor Lunafreya, would you now?”_

Noctis pulls himself to his feet after a long, long moment. He wipes at the tears on his face, wipes at the grime that slickens his hands in gray and brown, and then reaches for the specter of Prompto one last time. He cups the boy’s left cheek, lets his forehead press against that of this phantom’s, and then whispers a soft goodbye as he turns on his heels, one thing made certain:

He is going to make Ardyn _pay_.

**Author's Note:**

> So, fun fact, when playing chapter 13 of my RE copy of the game when I went up one of the staircases or whatever during Ardyn's taunting tirade about "uwu poor Prompto plz save him prince Noctis" and one of the staircases I went up to seemed to have a glitched model of Prompto standing there????
> 
> Like I know shit about the glitches in this game and if they still exist after 4 years time but seeing Prompto there sure as hell seemed like a glitch to me. He wasn't even moving, Noctis could pass through him like he was a hologram, Ardyn sure as hell wasn't commenting on Illusion!Prompto's sudden appearance and neither was Noctis at seeing him at the top of the staircase so I'm obligated to think his presence there was just a glitch. 
> 
> Hence the summary and main idea for this piece. Because, for me, playing as Noctis, seeing an illusion of Prompto right at the top of that staircase, thinking that was really him and wow Noctis could finally be reunited his his boyfrie- I mean best friend only to have Noctis eeriely not comment on Prompto's looming figure and for Ardyn to be completely silent about illusion!Prompto's presence made me realize...that Prompto isn't real. It's a glitch. And fanfic me thinking about how Noctis would've felt upon seeing Prompto at long last waiting for him at the top of the staircase...only to realize this Prompto is a delusion, _must_ be a delusion because Ardyn is no longer talking to him about Prompto...it broke my heart
> 
> Also, if anyone has no idea what I'm talking about on the offhand chance that this "glitch" isn't common: here's a video of it because boy howdy did this both freak me out and break my heart for Noctis all in one go given the circumstances of his journey at this point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeQRIfWEZwc&feature=youtu.be


End file.
